100 Greatest Video Game Villains Of All Time

It is often the Videogame heroes that get all of the acclaim, becoming the characters that most people want to dress up as or endeavour to become when they grow up, but what of the videogame villain? They are often the greatest thing about Videogames, whether it be their insane lack of morals or even their humorous personalities, and they often upstage the heroes in their own game. And frankly, they tend to be a lot cooler than heroes, thanks to their brazen disregard for authority and an inflated sense of self that leads to some comically unself-aware moments.

A good villain engages the gamer to come back for more – it is our commitment to foiling their diabolical plan that drives a game after all, and if the developers fail on that account, they will generally find complaints that their game lacks the necessary sting in the tail.

So, in the same year that Wreck-It-Ralph looks set to challenge what we all know about videogame villains, it’s time to look back on some of the greatest villains of all time, and give them the praise they deserve…

100. Lionel Messi – Fifa 13

Whilst Lionel Messi may not be a true Videogame villain, for me his place was always assured on this list because of the sheer skill that he brings to a match. I’ve lost count of the amount of times Messi has produced a moment of magic in an otherwise even online match that sees me drop the 3 points. Sometimes he’s just unstoppable, a great trait for a Videogame villain.

99. Mutant Baby – Zombies (SNES)

After battling Zombies and saving numerous friends you move forward into the next area and everything seems quiet, a little too quiet. Until all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the Giant Baby hurtles across your screen, trampling you outright with no mercy whatsoever. Truly creepy and totally unexpected, especially when he turns into a regular baby upon his defeat.

98. Charlie Jolson – The Getaway

A highly experienced crime boss who is not only a violent racist, supporting the British National Party, but who is also prone to extreme bouts of anger. He plans to cause a gang war that will help him re-take control of London, doing so by manipulating the Protagonist, Mark Hammond. If that isn’t enough, when his plans backfire, he tries to blow every remaining character up aboard his ship, including himself.

97. Teepo – Breath of Fire 3

Originally one of your starting team, Teepo went missing only to reappear towards the game’s climax, revealing that he is also a member of the brood but aligns himself with the Goddess Myria, who believes dragons are too powerful to live alongside people. Sadly, once defeated, Teepo reveals he only ever wanted to live alongside you and Rei as in the beginning of the game.

96. Warren Eckhardt – Dead Space: Extraction

Extraction laid waste to the belief by many that a first-person rail shooter can’t have an involving story, at which Warren Eckhardt was at the core. Eckhardt was revealed as a devout Unitologist, only to kill the only person that knows and attempt to murder another, all in his quest to capture Lexine for testing as to why she was immune to the effects of the Marker.

Read Next...

I'm a Scriptwriting degree holder from Bournemouth University and spend most of my days furthering my extensive passion for Film, TV, Music and Videogames. I am an unashamed geek and have a tattoo of the Dark Knight Batman symbol on my back, also love a good story and highly look forward to when Liverpool FC remember how to play football. Follow me on twitter for more random media related musings @GuyWidBatTattoo.

Discussion

87 Comments

Seems like you have a hard-on for final fantasy games. Good list, but honestly there seem to be a few enemies missing here. Shang Tsung, Shao Khan, Dr. Robotnik, Necromorphs, Haytham, the Borgias, the End (MGS3), Raven, Heihachi, M Bison, the Zombie, etc. Listing 100 villains is hard enough as it is, but i’m not a final fantasy fan really, and that series seems too light-hearted to actually have truly menacing villains. Yeah Separoth is good, but I actually admired his character more than I despised him.

Yeah I know there were quite a few Final Fantasy villains in here, but after playing through each of their games, all of them were just so menacing and memorable that, for me, they needed a place in the list. The fact that there are just so many games in the series meant they were always going to have a lot of entries I guess, especially seeing as the majority of them have accomplished a whole lot more than other villains. Whilst some entries in the series are light-hearted, I wouldn’t exactly say that about the villains in FF 7 and FF 8, whilst Kefka from FF6 was a clown and he was, at times, funny, his actions were definitely not light-hearted in the slightest. Believe me, between each of the villains that are on this list, they are all extremely menacing in their own right. Except maybe Ultros, but he’s just brilliant anyway.

Dr. Robotnik is actually in this list, he’s sitting proudly at number 18! I almost included the End because of the battle with him, but then he didn’t really do a whole lot and could be killed simply by waiting, which was cool but not overly great for a villain. Vulcan Raven also missed out because I already had a lot of MGS villains in the list and he wasn’t as strong an antagonist as Sniper Wolf or Liquid Ocelot. I did have a think about the Borgias from AC too but although I love the games, I could not specifically point out as to why the villains themselves were that great, although I do remember being extremely happy when Ezio finally killed Cesare. He was a great villain for me, but just not quite great enough. I can only admit that I haven’t played AC 3 as of yet and so Haytham unfortunately didn’t really get an opportunity to be in this list.

In the cases of your suggestions from fighting games, I prefer other villains in their series to them themselves. Whilst M. Bison was great, I preferred Vega because he was just so damn cool, those claws really elevated him above everyone else in the game and to be honest, the movie really really ruined M. Bison for me so I’m not exactly unbiased in that sense. Shang Tsung and Shao Kahn were cool too but I can’t help but think they haven’t been helped by the low quality storytelling within the Mortal Kombat series, I love playing the games but never care much for the storytelling within them, hence why Goro made it in instead, he’s just a better villain in terms of his appearance and fighting style. Kitaro was actually a close second for me. Heihachi suffered from the same fate, with the Tekken series doing little to create a solid, exciting storyline to really push Heihachi as a great videogame villain. Whilst he was great to hate, I never really thought that I must play the game again to stop him and his plans, whilst sometimes his plans were just vague and uninteresting.

I tried to avoid species of monsters such as Necromorphs and Zombies, aiming more for the actual villains themselves, because I know of other game villain lists that have a lot of spaces taken up by such entries and thought I’d be more specific. Admittedly the Flood from Halo are in there, but the series needed to have some representation and they are my personal favourite enemies in the series.

Thanks for reading and commenting though! I always knew this was going to cause a big debate and I do love expressing where my opinions for the list come from!

Like The List. I was kinda hopin for some more obscure villains, Like Cackletta and Fawful from the Mario @ Luigi games. Some other ones to consider were Takaya(Persona 3)and Torhu Adachi(Persona 4). Maybe some of the evil exs’from the scott pilgrim game? Reply back if you could to answer my questions.

Thanks! Ah I must admit I’ve never really played Fable! I’ve always heard good things but never really got round to it, so unfortunately he didn’t really get a chance to be on the list. Thanks for the suggestion though!

I was really happy to see all of my favorite Bioshock villains on this list since that’s easily my favorite game. I would say you have too much time on your hands to compile this list but so do I so it’s all good

Bioshock’s definitely one of my favourite games too! Felt each of the villains really had to be on here, glad to see I’m not the only one who thought so! Haha it really didn’t take as long as I thought it was going to in the end, I’d been planning it for quite a while so was quite easy to write when I came to it.

He may not technically be a villain, but Captain Martin Walker from Spec Ops: The Line was definately worthy of this list simply because you have to play out his bad choices and ever so slowly watch him slip into insanity. His need to know the truth drives him, and his slip into insanity can very much relate to the problem modern soldiers face with the stress and traumatic experiences they face. May have a few run-on sentences but oh well.

I actually heard a bit about him whilst I was writing this article from a friend! I thought about including him but ultimately just hadn’t played the game in order to feel like I could do him justice whilst writing about him. Sounds great though and I feel like I missed out by missing the game up to this point!

right choice for number 1. Since final fantasy 7, its all turned into a gay fantasy, but sephiroth was the last true villain. Once you get to know him, you’ll soom see why he’s number 1 and would also want to side with him instead of all the goodies.

Glad that you agree Sephiroth was the right choice for the number 1 spot but I wouldn’t personally agree that Final Fantasy has ‘turned into a gay fantasy’ at all, I actually believe that to be very awful / ignorant terminology to describe anything. I didn’t particularly wish to side with Sephiroth either, whilst his backstory was to some extent very tragic, he was still corrupted and extremely evil, he had to be stopped.

I’ve only really played Gears of War on multi-player and never really the actual story mode! I don’t own an Xbox so miss the majority of its exclusives, I’ve only played Halo enough to include the Flood as I played it with a friend when it was first released. Wish I knew more to include them but that’s the reason there really! I also haven’t got round to playing Skyrim yet unfortunately! I just didn’t feel like I had the 200 hours that I know I’d lose to it if I started playing just yet! haha

Definitely agree about Edgar Ross! He was actually in my original thoughts when I was thinking of this article and right now I can’t for the life of me remember why I didn’t include him. He was definitely evil and it was great getting to kill him, but a part of me thinks it may have been worse for him to not have been killed, but have something else bad happen to him. Then again I guess it wouldn’t have been about redemption if Jack went and killed his family or something haha.

Yeah thats fair enough. There are so many great villians I guess narrowin it down to 100 is pretty difficult. Even now i’m thinkin back to when i played the original playstation when spyro first came out. Some great villians in that series with my favourites being ripto, gulp and crush from gateway to glimmer. Good memories :D

Yeah it took a lot of thinking time! Especially when it came to putting them in order afterwards, took a lot of soul searching haha, really didn’t know who I loved most as I was compiling it! Ah Spyro! I was trying to think of all the old series that I used to love, which is how Crash Bandicoot villains made it in, I can’t believe I managed to overlook Spyro too, I loved all of the PS1 games, I’m still holding out for another good attempt at a Spyro game, it has to come eventually surely!

haha thanks! I actually expected comments regarding Messi to go the other way, with people complaining that he was taking up a space where a more legitimate villain could be. Glad that you agree though!

Yay for Wesker! Haha he was always going to be in my top 10, I love the guy no matter how psychotic he was! Can’t believe that Barry Burton has been omitted from so many Resident Evil games now too, he’s easily the thing the series misses the most!

Barry Burton is indeed a dreadful glaring ommission in the Res Evil series. I miss his inane dialogue like “you Jill, the master of unlocking!” or “you were almost a Jill sandwich!”. He has to be the worst voice acted, poorly scripted character of all time! They are too embarrassed to bring him back.

Haha “You were almost a Jill sandwich” is probably my favourite videogame line ever! Barry was incredible, I think everyone would just love him to come back exactly as it was, including his awful dialogue, I know I would! It’s got to the point where I was actually happy to see him turn up in the latest film, that’s how much I miss him!

Thanks, glad you liked it. Yeah Handsome Jack was always going to be pretty high on the list, he’s a brilliant villain, I have only experienced him via some friends thus far though and whilst I loved the first Borderlands, I’m yet to play the 2nd one! Probably the main reason he sits at the number he does.

Thanks! Must admit I very nearly had Ganon 2nd! But, for me Pyramid Head is implanted quite far into my head because I remember playing Silent Hill 2 back when it first came out and being truly terrified whenever I heard his sword dragging along the floor, it still brings back memories to this day! haha it was a tough call in the end though, most of the villains in the top 10 deserve to be number 1.

I’m sorry…tell me how SEIFER is worse than PROFESSOR FRIGGIN’ HOJO?! Sure, Seifer was pretty bad, but I’d compare him more to Riku- misguided. Meanwhile, Hojo inflicted hordes of misery on Cloud, Sephiroth, Lucrecia and pretty much everyone he got his tentacles into for no reason other than “For science!”. And he tried to BREED Aerith and Red XIII to “save” their species and probably experiment on the hybrid babies (if there were any). Compared to that, Seifer’s more like a yappy little puppy dog.
Also, Ansem should be in front of Maleficent. If you calculate all his forms, he did some pretty massive mental damage to the good guys and unleashed years of darkness all over the worlds. Maleficent was a good villain in the first Kingdom Hearts, playing on Riku’s jealousy and all. But after that, she kinda suffered villain decay, what with the heroes having to save her twice. Plus, she hasn’t been able to really do anything bad to the heroes since KHI. What were you using to rate the villains, because it can’t be sheer villainy alone.

Was this list entitled ‘Most evil videogame villians’? It’s labelled Greatest Videogame Villains so obviously it was never going to be based on ‘villainy alone’. I never stated that Seifer is worse than Hojo, in fact I’m pretty sure the majority of greatest videogame villains lists don’t even include Hojo, so you can be happy about that for a start. I did say that Seifer was under Ultimecia’s control all along, if you read the entries you’d have seen that, so I wasn’t claiming he was more evil than all of those who came below him in the list. The only reason Hojo isn’t higher in the list is because he doesn’t appear for large sections of the game whereas Seifer is a constant threat throughout Final Fantasy 8.

Same rules apply for Ansem, as you mis-read the meaning of Greatest, you have come to the conclusion that Ansem should be higher simply because he performed far more evil acts. The Maleficent entry stated that it was Kingdom Hearts 1 because that is when she was a great villain, and was much more formidable than Ansem throughout that game as far as I’m concerned, especially as Ansem was only ever Xenahort’s Heartless anyway. The fact that I used Ansem proves that I wasn’t talking about all his forms, otherwise I’d have used Xehanort. Just because a villain may change in sequels, doesn’t mean they lose how great they were in the original game.

Plus, do you really think Pyramid Head would be second if it was rated on how evil the actions they performed were? He’s not evil in the slightest to be honest, only a manifestation of guilt, but that doesn’t stop him being an incredibly scary villain and earning his place in this list. Even Sephiroth wouldn’t be in the top ten if it was based on how evil everything they did was.

Thanks for reading and commenting! But I just think you mis-read the article’s meaning there.

Hey there. Just wanted to say some stuff real fast.
So, for the most part, I think this is an excellent list. And obviously, there is not one list anywhere in existence that will satisfy everybody who reads it. But, well, here we go.

My biggest issue deals with Zoran, the main antagonist from Uncharted 2. I HATED that guy. Not in a good way, in a way like I literally cannot bear it when he walks on screen. I thought he was so cliche, so much of a stereotypical villain, so poorly penned, ect. ect. To see him placed higher than my all time favorites (Tenpenny and Ares, who you get props for including, by the way) just kind of killed me inside. Like some of the other suggestions have said, Edgar Ross would have been an excellent addition, as would have Dimitri Rascolov from GTA IV. I know some people hate him for lots of reasons, I really think he was a good villain. Because it’s a GTA game, so you know you’ll be betrayed. But when you see him, he’s just trying to calm everybody down, playing the peacekeeper with Mikhail. It just caught me by surprise when it was him that became Niko’s best rival.

Anyways, thanks for reading, sorry if you found me rude or something, it was not my intention to be so.

Hey! Thanks for reading and for your comment! Definitely understand where you’re coming from, personally I felt Lazarevic was a particularly great villain, I always felt threatened when he made an appearance. I guess he could be seen as stereotypical, but after the first game focused on what were basically treasure hunters, I loved that they stepped the game up and brought in an international warlord for Drake to face off against, really upping the odds and the threat level at the same time. The final fight was great too, he’s a villain who still can’t be hurt directly by the game’s protagonist, and I even thought he was really well written, I guess it’s a little stereotypical to have someone so selfish they don’t care about even their closest henchman, but he was surprisingly clever underneath all his brute force too, something which is less stereotypical of villains in his mould.

Edgar Ross on the other hand definitely would have been a good inclusion in the list, I’m not entirely sure why I didn’t include him, I did love Red Dead Redemption and only played it through again not all that long ago, I think as much as I loved the story and the game, he just didn’t stick in my mind whilst I was writing this for reasons I’m not really sure of, otherwise he’d definitely have made an appearance in here somewhere! I personally wasn’t as surprised when Dimitri betrayed Niko, probably because as you say I expected to be double crossed at some point. I played the majority of the game’s story missions with a friend and just remember taking a dislike to Dimitri for whatever reason quite early on, so I did enjoy it when he became a villain though! I think I would have included in if he wasn’t overshadowed by other GTA villains such as Tenpenny, Big Smoke and Ricardo Diaz, not to mention Lance Vance. I did like Dimitri and definitely agree with you, but I just don’t believe he was as good a villain as those guys.

Thanks again for commenting though, always good to hear other points of view!

Yeah, you make a good argument for both Dimitri and Zoran. It has been a little while since I played Uncharted 2, so maybe I’m horribly wrong. I must profess that I have not really loved any of the Uncharted villains. Talbot from U3 was the only one who has really stuck with me so far. But you’re right, Zoran was a big step up from the antagonists in the first game.
I don’t know. Maybe I’m just more partial to a different type of bad guy. For example, Vaas, another of my all time favorites, was originally conceived as a big guy with zero intellect. Then he was revised in to a pyromaniac, then to the Vaas we all know and love. He was also threatening, same as Zoran, but in a different way. Like how he would just kind of randomly pop up here and there, taking you by surprise and knocking you out, mostly. And when he did get his screen time, you were sort of really afraid because you had no freaking clue what he would do next. The way he was and the reception he got is going to eliminate lots of the Zoran-type villains in the coming years, I think.
So, two last things before I stop my rant:
One: I absolutely commend you for placing Hoyt Volker on your list. Most of my friends thought he was horrible, especially compared to Vaas. I agree that he was not as impressive, but I still liked him, and I’m glad you did as well.
Two: I will admit, the scene where Zoran killed his own guy that Drake had hostage was pretty cool. If I had to put together a list like this, I’m not sure I could name 100 villains, let alone rank them and stuff. So, good work.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with playing to a stereotype every now and then, and Zoran is most definitely a good example of this, in my opinion. He was a well-written, intimidating, well-acted and surprisingly intelligent character and as Adam mentioned, he really upped the stakes from the first game. Although I did just barely prefer Uncharted 3’s Marlowe and Talbot, and I feel that at least one of them should have made this list. Talbot is probably the most unique villain due to his mysterious nature, and Marlowe’s conversation with Drake midway through the game remains one of my favourite video game moments of this generation.

Yuck. Gary Oak? You mean Blue, right? The actual video game character, not the anime one? TIM and Harbringer from Mass Effect rather than Saren or Sovereign, much better villains from the same series and not even the best Bioware has offered with the likes of Loghain, Master Li, Sarevok, and especially Irenicus? The weak Origami Killer instead of the likes of the devious and intelligent Serial Killer X? A soccer player over the likes of alien queens, predators, and any number of other great and fearful creatures and antagonists? No Cyberdemon? The friggin mama’s boy at number 1?

Pretty sure he was called Gary in Pokemon Red though? Or could you choose to name him as well, I can’t really remember, everyone knows he was Gary either way though.

Personally I’d take TIM and Harbinger over Saren and Sovereign any day, are you sure you aren’t just caught up with the hate surrounding ME 3 for little reason? Also for me, Loghain, Sarevok and Irenicus hardly stuck in my mind, despite having played through the games that they appear in I could hardly remember them when it came to this list, hardly a good characteristic of a videogame villain. In fact, I couldn’t think of Dragon Age at all so Loghain had no chance. Jade Empire on the other hand I can only say I have never played it due to not owning an Xbox, though I hear it’s brilliant, so maybe Master Li would have made it in if I did.

And I know countless people who would disagree that the Origami Killer is ‘weak’, if you didn’t like Heavy Rain then that’s fair enough, it’s easy to see that it’s not for everyone, but the Origami Killer was a great villain, not least because you play as him for large sections of the game without realising it, you actually spend a lot of the game cleaning up his mess and putting the police off his tail, devastating when you realise the truth! His whole plans was strong too, like a much more accomplished version of the Jigsaw Killer that the Saw videogames didn’t really follow through on as much as I would have liked, he was a good villain in many respects. I also haven’t played the Condemned games and so Serial Killer X didn’t really get a chance to be in this list unfortunately, although it’s interesting you choose to describe him as ‘devious and intelligent’, two words that can definitely be used to describe the Origami Killer too. In reality there’s just far too many games out there for me to have experienced them all enough to include every single villain.

I do however completely disagree that any amount of alien queens or predators should make it into this list, this is regarding videogames you realise? They have never really stood out in videogames for me at all, though I haven’t yet purchased Colonial Marines so maybe that will change the fate of Aliens within the videogame world, but maybe it won’t, who knows. The Cyberdemon has always been eclipsed by Mecha Hitler in Wolfenstein for me as well anyway, they are very similar games after all, hence his lack of inclusion in the list (He wasn’t all that great anyway).

I’ve spoken to many people who all agree that Sephiroth has more than earned his place at number one as well, calling him a ‘mamas boy’ is incredibly dismissive of what he achieves and what he has been through, it even suggests a lack of understanding of the game’s plot. He is a very tragic and highly volatile character who is linked to Cloud in more ways than are understandable for a large part of the game, highlighting how great a villain he truly was.

I would say there was too many Final Fantasy mentioning… He forgot to name Wheatly that is probably the best villain Valve ever made… Also I’d love since he made so many Crash references to say at least one villain for The Legend of Spyro…

Thanks for reading and commenting though! The issue with their being too many Final Fantasy villains…I knew I would draw this criticism from some readers, but they just have so many brilliant and iconic villains that it would be criminal not to include them. I know they take up a fair few places on the list, but because of the sheer amount of Final Fantasy games that exist, it makes sense that they would have more entries on the list, whereas series’ with just one entry would have just one or maybe two entries. People rarely look at it that way whereas, in my opinion, it’s entirely logical for it to have worked out this way.

For me, Wheatley was brilliant and unexpected but GLaDOS was the better of the villains in the Portal games, hence why she made it in and Wheatley didn’t. I used to love the Spyro games as well, but I never thought that I enjoyed them because of the villains, but mainly because of the gameplay. In my personal opinion, the villains from Crash Bandicoot were always better than the villains from Spyro and seeing as they were both platform games, Crash’s villains stick in my mind whereas Spyro’s don’t. I did love the series though, just wish they could bring it back to how the original games were, especially Gateway to Glimmer!

Cool list but I definitely would’ve had William Birkin and Ada Wong on this list. Especialla Ada, since she not only did Weskers dirty work but emotionally scarred Leon as well. Also, the Elites in Halo are always a pain in the ass to kill. And I agree with one of the comments about Haytham. You NEED to play Assassins creed 3! It’s awesome. Don’t know if you agree but I always hated fighting Master Hand? Lol idk if he’s considered a villain though. I think Wesker should of been in the top 5 but great list!

Thanks! I did like Birkin and Wong, but there was the whole thing with Ada not being particularly evil in Resident Evil 6 and actually being on the good side of things and to be honest that tends to be how I see her these days. She’s done really awful things in the past but nowdays she’s nice enough. I’m still planning on getting into AC 3 soon! As soon as I’ve finished with Ni No Kuni I’ll get my hands on a copy.

I know what you mean about Master Hand too! I remember him being a real pain in the ass at times, especially when there were two hands. Think it was in ..Brawl? Can’t really remember, and he was pretty cool, just didn’t really do enough to justify a place on the list for me!

Love the list there are characters in this that i know and others i haven’t heard of obviously not everyone can make the list but there are the characters that stand out to me which i believe deserve a mention like alec mercer from prototype 2, although he did start as the hero in the first game he was a badass villain in the second game,

also there is the likes of alduin from skyrim, jenova from ff7, ra’s al ghul in arkham city was also a good villain, but i do agree that this list is very well put together

Thanks! Admittedly I still haven’t got round to playing Prototype 2 (I really want to!), so unfortunately I didn’t feel like I could include Alex Mercer and know what to write about him. Skyrim suffered the same fate.

Jenova on the other hand, I agree that she effectively kick-started everything and she is probably the central villain, highlighted when you fight various incarnations of her across the game, but I already included Hojo and Sephiroth, both of whom I feel have more direct control of the story, and are more monstrous simply because it is their choice to commit their evil acts, Jenova is basically a being of pure evil, it was in her nature to be evil and really without Hojo harnessing her power and creating Sephiroth, she wouldn’t have been overly great in herself. I do love the whole idea behind her though!

Ra’s was great too, I definitely agree, I had only just finished re-playing Arkham City when I made this list so not entirely sure why I didn’t think to include him. Thanks for reading and for the suggestions though!

I personally thought thas Vaas Montenegro shouldve won, he is at least top 5 material. He is just such an amazing villain!!! At most points in the story i wanted him to come out victorious. a well thought out villain with tons of color! He was so unpredictable, and his mixed/multiple personalities made him so memorable and suprisingly likeable.

Vaas probably would have had a higher rating had he managed to last until the game’s climax. Whilst I loved him as a villain, there were others who accomplished more than he did. If he was Far Cry 3’s central antagonist this may have been different, although he is definitely one of my favourite villains anyway.

What about Prince of Persia 2 and 3? The big black monster in 2 and the evil soul in 3. No Streets of Rage bosses (1 of the best games ever made imo). AC 3 Haytham. Onikage from the tenchu series. The Boss in MGS3. Shao Khan MK. Agent Smith The Matrix Game. The Baseball Furies in The Warriors.

I’d argue that Zeus (40) is an antagonist rather than a villain, and I disagree with most of the positioning too, particularly the top 5, which are absurd choices (maybe with the exception of Ganon). Number 2 is the stupidest of course, as it would have been much smarter to list the town itself as the villain.
Well done on being motivated enough to write such a long list though, I doubt I’d be willing to even do fifty.
Oh, and you should have included the nutter Dr from the first Dead Space.

Loved the list!! :) Awesome description of the villains (because some games listed are not familiar to me)… I have a question though, what do you think about Assassin’s Creed though? Like Al Mualim, the templars… they are good villains too :D i think? heh lol

Yeah…. theres more games out there than just for the sony line up…. sorry but the bad dudes in homeworld and homeword 2 destroyed their homeworld. Just sayin, and no “cyber demon” ? That creature struck fear in kids back in 1993….. not even going to mention the quake series or the fallouts. But yeah go final fantasy, best villains by far. Who the hell wrote this crap anyways…

Only Ganon and Dark Link from the Legend of Zelda series? Ghirahim and Demise from Skyward Sword where really good bosses, along with Vaati. Also, the Joker and any other comic book character shouldn’t be on here. They are good villains yes, but the didn’t debut in a video game so they wouldn’t exactly be considered video game characters (The excuse that they are in a video game still doesn’t mean they are true video game characters).

Something tells me this list was a little too favored in Final Fanasty’s direction, Sephiroth does not belong on the number one spot. He is not that evil, or rather not even close to be deserving the spot he holds evil; this list is flawed. It was a nice try though I’ll give you that.

I think this list is great, though, I think Master Xehanort from Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep should be on the top 30. He’s cunning, malicious, destroyed lives and friendships, and had all of his evil plans well thought out even if they were to backfire

Great list man! Great to see so many Metal Gear villains on the list, I remember being blown away as a kid by the fact I had to change my controller port to beat Mantis. Even in modern gaming that still seems like such an intelligent idea.

Through out the whole article, I was thinking, Sepiroth has to be number one and you didn’t disappoint.

I know it’s a matter of opinion, but it’s absolutelly pathetic putting Sephiroth in this spot. He’s not even the greatest villain in his own game! He’s an interesting character and being the super soldier thing is quite badass, but after the revealing events, he ends up being one of the most ridiculous villains of gaming. Big momma’s boy. I think his Safer Sephiroth form is pretty cool, as is Safer’s attack, and his theme is on my top 10 ff songs, but I only place him on my top 10 villains of the FF franchise when he comes along with Jenova. He’s just no match for other villains, Kefka specially. In every way.

I would personally put raul menendez atleast top 30 (no im not a cod fanboy) since he in a realistic way without any superpowers or anything may or may not take over a whole world and every thing he planed always has another turn and his personal story is also very cool.
i also believe he is atleast better than Makarov.

Kefka should have gotten the #1 spot. His was easily the most epic final boss battle in video game history, especially as you ascended throughout the battle and the organ church music kicked in. It made me forget that I was playing a silly little Super Nintendo back in 1994 when I first beat Final Fantasy III(VI).

I’ll give you Makarov (albeit grudgingly, because I always thought Zakhaev was more threatening), but Shepard shouldn’t have a place on this list. He was a boring, flat character, with a ridiculous plan that, upon the revelation of his true nature, completely destroyed any suspension of disbelief CoDMW2 had built up to that point.

I’ll also give you Menendez, but I feel like you chose him for the wrong reasons. Raul Menendez makes an intriguing villain because of his origins. That he witnessed his people murdered by the American backed Contras, his father assassinated by the CIA, and his sister killed in an American raid all makes Menendez a much more sympathetic villain and explains the true reasons for his “terrorism.”

Anyway, I’m a bit disappointed that characters like Shepard appear on this list, while truly interesting villains (such as Spec Ops: The Line’s Konrad or the Radioman, or even Walker) are omitted from this list.

Great list but there is one villain I feel you have missed out on. Eric Sparrow from Tony Hawk’s Underground (im not saying he should be near even the 50s) but I always he feel he deserves a mention, he screws you over countless times is a complete and utter scumbag :P haha still a great list though

Sephiroth is number one… biiiig surprise. Usually when I read these top (add number) video game villain lists I move immeaditely to top 5 and if I see Sephiroth there, it means the list is not worthy to read. Even though I love Final Fantasy 7, Sephiroth as a character is just hollow and one dimensional and he doesn’t even have a good motive.

Dimitri Rascalov from GTA 4, Vergil from DMC, Akuma from SF, Mr. Big from NARC (1988), Razor from NFS MW (2005), Shao Khan from MK, Edgar Ross from RDR & Alejandro Sosa from SC: TWIY are the greatest game villains of all time & they should be on top 100 list.

I was waiting for Sephiroth to show up. And then BAM! #1. I liked that very much. Psycho Mantis was one pain in the ass. My brother and I played his stage a dozen times before we figured out to plug in the controller in the 2nd port (admittedly, we got desperate and looked for the walk-through)